Grandpa Incredible
by Runt Thunderbelch
Summary: When Elastigirl's dad is called on to watch the kids, Violet and Dash find out the old geezer is full of surprises. Read & review, but whatever you do, don't eat the pizza!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I make no claim on _The Incredibles_. I make no revenues from this story. Read, enjoy & review.

Grandpa Incredible

Chapter 1

"Take good care of our kids while we're gone," Helen said to me.

"I'll try not to break them," I grunted. She'd turned out okay, hadn't she? I think her old man knows a little about raising kids.

She kissed me, gave one last, longing look towards Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack, and began gathering up her luggage. She and Bob were going off on an ocean cruise to "work on their marriage." From what I could gather, Bob hadn't been entirely truthful with her about his recent activities. There was also something about a platinum-blond hair Helen had found on Bob's clothing, and Helen may (or may not) have cold cocked the blond involved. All of this was none of my business. I just knew was that grandpa was being pressed into service as a babysitter.

I herded the kids back to the car. As I was strapping Jack-Jack into his car seat, Dash asked, "Can we have pizza tonight?"

"Sure," I said. "I checked the fridge before we left, and we have everything we need to make one."

His jaw dropped. "Make our own pizza?"

Violet's drawl came from across the car. "Uh oh."

"It'll be fun," I assured them. "Didn't your mother every make you guys a pizza from scratch?"

Violet turned a little green. "Yeah?"

"Well, who do you think taught her how to make one?"

Dash wailed, "We're dooooooooomed!"

It was of course delicious: a baloney, salami, sandwich loaf, carrot, celery, and artichoke heart pizza. You can't buy one of those in a pizzeria. "Aren't you eating?"

"I had a piece," Violet answered, "but I need to leave room for dinner. My date should be picking me up any minute now."

"Date? No one told me about any date."

"Mom must have forgotten to mention it." The doorbell chimed. "I'll get it!"

I grabbed her. "No, I'll get it. You need to prepare to make 'an entrance'. Don't appear to be too eager." Don't kids today know anything about romance? I made my way to the front door and opened it. My heart dropped.

He was five feet, seven inches of bad news. He reminded me of _Julius Caesar_, Act I, Scene 2: _Cassius has a lean and hungry look. _"Yes?" My voice sounded nastier than I meant it to be.

"Is Violet ready?"

"Come in won't you?" The hairs on the back of my neck were already standing on end. I knew why Helen hadn't mentioned this guy. She didn't know about him. When the kid slouched passed, I said, "I'm Violet's grandfather."

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Do you have a name?"

He nodded again. "Yeah."

Violet bounded in. "I'm ready."

Okay, what does grandpa do? Does he play the bad guy and roar, _You aren't going anywhere with this guy!_ or does he trust in his granddaughter's good sense, the granddaughter who's already been less than honest about this guy? Does he trust this guy? He does not! "Wait. That outfit needs something."

I disappeared into the kitchen for just a second and came back with a small, sparkling broach. "Wear this."

"Is this real?" gasped Violet as I pinned it on.

"Real diamonds, emeralds and rubies?" I laughed. "I think not. No, this is just something that your grandmother used to wear. It always kept her safe."

"This was grandma's?" She fingered it lovingly. "Thanks, grandpa." She kissed my cheek. And then went skipping into the night with the scum of the earth.

I remembered the last words Helen had said to me before she and Bob left: "Take good care of our kids while we're gone." This was Night Number One, and I might have already screwed up.

Tiny ghostlike jet fighters zipped around the living room, firing mock lasers at one another. Dash laughed like a chipmunk. "Grandpa, this is too cool! Where did you get them?"

"I made them."

"Made them?" His jet barrel rolled and nailed my jet good. "You made these?"

I hit the eject button, and my holographic pilot shot safely out the top of his plane, saving me five points. "I keep telling people I'm a scientific genius! Why will nobody believe me?"

"Oh, I need one of these for my birthday!"

Just then, my fractal alarm went off. When Dash and I re-set, I switched my plane over to auto-pilot. "Dash, my prostate's acting up again. I'll be in the can for a while."

"Okay."

I went around the corner and de-fractilized.

I reassembled about thirty yards away from the broach. I heard Violet snarling in the bushes, "Get off of me!" which started me towards her on a dead run.

"Yiiiiieeeeeeeeee!" Her date flew out of the bushes, arced over some nearby trees and landed somewhere with a crash.

I stopped running.

Okay, my granddaughter was a super. I wished someone had told me. I backed towards the shadows.

She stormed out of the bushes, brushing twigs and leaves off of her, madder than a wasp. She looked up and down the streets for a bus or a taxi. But the only vehicle was the piece of junk her date drove. Time for the cavalry to arrive.

I stepped out of the shadows. "Evening, Violet.

"Grandpa? Grandpa, what are you doing here?  
>We walked over to one another. I held out my hands, palms up. "Take my hands," I told her.<p>

"Were you spying on me?"

"Take my hands."

"Answer me! Were you spying on me?"

"Take my hands." She did, and we de-fractilized. We reassembled in the hallway of her house. "There's something you should know about me—"

"Dash!" she shrieked, "Grandpa's a super too!" 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Violet didn't like my choice of color for my fighter jet, so she tweaked it from blue to (surprise) violet. Then her violet fighter and Dash's crimson fighter tangled repeatedly in the skies over the coffee table.

"Was grandma a super too?" asked Violet, blasting away at her brother.

"Yep."

Dash asked, "What were your names?  
>"I was Gemstone. Your grandma was Witchy Woman."<p>

Violet's jet slammed full throttle into the living room wall. It exploded and winked out. "Oh my god! You were Gemstone and Witchy Woman? You were two of the first!"

"Mmm hum." I didn't point out that we two were very first supers ever. I took the broach that Violet had returned to me. "Watch this." My hand fractilized, and the various gemstones of the broach went wiggling into it, like so many droplets of mercury returning to a main pool. Then my hand turned back to flesh and blood. "I couldn't see you or hear you," I assured Violet, "but I could feel it if you were frightened or angry."

"I studied you two in school," said Dash, classifying us along with other ancients like Socrates and Columbus. "Your super powers were invulnerability and fractilization. Hers were illusion and metamorphosis."

Violet said, "That explains where Jack-Jack gets his powers from."

"He can metamorphasize?" I asked.

"Yeah, but only when he gets scared or angry. My powers are invisibility and force field. Dash has super speed." Her cell phone rang, and she answered.

Dash sighed, "A whole family of supers! Wow! Hey, what about Uncle Hal and Aunt Effie? What about their kids?"

Violet said a word I'd hope never to hear a granddaughter of mine say, leapt up, and snapped on the TV.

"Violet!"

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" she began repeating, like it was some kind of mantra.  
>The news flickered into focus. An octopus the size of a skyscraper had wrapped itself around the Tri-Harbor Bridge. Searchlights illuminated its aqua and black body as it snatched up cars from off the roadway and hurled them into the waters below. I recognized the beast as belonging to: "Riptide!"<p>

Violet moaned, "We gotta get mom and dad back here now!"

"What for?" asked Dash breezily. "Metroville has you, me, and Gemstone. How many more supers does it need?"

While the kids squirmed into their supersuits, I dumped Jack-Jack with the neighbors'. Then we all ran for the car.

"Shotgun!" cried Violet.

Dash chuckled, "No problem," and he rocketed off down the street by himself.

"Dashiell Parr!" I shouted. "You get back here!" When he kept going, I bellowed, "Dash!"

Violet and I leaped into the car. I started the engine, backed the car out of the driveway, and we tore out after him.

Most folks were already home, eating dinner and watching a giant octopus on T.V. hurling people to their deaths, and so the streets were rather quiet. We raced along and ran a few red lights without causing too much havoc.

A streak of white appeared to our right. Frozone rested his left wrist against his spine, and his right arm pumped to speed him along over the tract of ice he was laying down. Violet saw him and called out, "Frozone!" He skated over.

"You guys see the octopus on TV?"  
>"Yeah!" said Violet. "We're going to stop him."<p>

"Not if I get there first. Uh, you're taking your grandpa along?"

"He's Gemstone."

"You're kidding!" gasped Frozone and fell.

He caught up with us a few blocks later. "Really? Gemstone?" He opened the passenger door and told Violet to shove over. She squeezed up next to me, and he jumped into the space she'd vacated. "This is an honor, sir."

"Stow if for now, Frozone," I growled. "Right now, we gotta make some sushi!"

"I heard that!"

Violet was fiddling with the car radio. Suddenly it barked, "People of Metroville. I am Riptide! Listen carefully! Unless you with to again feel the fury of my giant octopus, you are to fill a treasure chest, 1 foot by 1 foot by 2 feet with blue-white diamonds. You have 24 hours. Tomorrow night, I will contact you on this same radio frequency and give you the locale where you are to deliver it. Failure on your part to comply with these instructions will mean I again loose my pet against your fair city. And maybe some of her friends will join her. That is all. Riptide out."

We pulled up into a mostly empty parking lot on the shore. We could see the mangled metal of the bridge, but the octopus was long gone. Dash was out in the water, pushing a large raft along with his superlegs, picking up survivors.

Frozone was first out of the car. He shot a pier of ice out over the bay, and Violet ran out onto it and begin helping people clamber up to safety.

I was the only one without a supersuit, and so I ran to a nearby Starbucks to get coffee for the survivors. When the manager realized what I was there for, he began wheeling out mobile canisters of coffee plus some little cakes. He wouldn't take any money but ordered his crew to wheel the stuff out to the bay for the cold, wet shivering people who were staggering ashore.

His face was later all over the eleven o'clock news.

There were also long shots of Violet, Dash and Frozone, but like true superheroes, they didn't let the news cameras get close enough to get a clear shot of their faces.

No one noticed the old geezer standing by a car, rapping his knuckles on the hood. My own grandkids were out there fighting crime and terror. And what was I doing? Nothing.

This was going to have to change.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

"Who are you? Who, who, who?"

I stared into the remote camera. "Jim Stone."

"Who? Whom did you say? Never heard of you. Go away!"

"James T. Stone?"

"Bah, a no name! Stop bothering me!"

"Gemstone."

"DAHLING! I barely recognize you! You look - old! My god, you're old! I heard you were dead. Well, obviously you're not. You're here at my front gate looking –- old. But where is that lovely wife of yours?"

"She's dead."

"Oh, no matter." The mechanical gate growled open. "Come in, dahling, come in!" The intercom clicked off, the camera light winked off, and Jack-Jack and I drove up the long driveway to the legendary estate of Edna Mode.

Edna didn't served coffee; she served tea, along with cookies, which she called biscuits. "So why aren't you dead, dahling?" she asked across the short table holding her tea service. "I never hear of you anymore."

I shrugged and fed a biscuit to Jack-Jack. "Well once Witchy Woman . . .er." I couldn't bring myself to finish that sentence. "Once I found myself alone, things just didn't seem to matter anymore. So piece by piece, I got rid of everything. Even my supersuit."

"Mmmm hmmmm," she nodded suspiciously.

"But I need a new one now."

"Do you?"

"Yes, in a hurry."

"So, you're no longer alone?"

"I have my grandkids, Violet and Dash. They're—"

"Those are yours? Fantastic powers! Beautiful suits! Completely obnoxious personalities of course, but they're children, so what else can one expect?"

"I need a new suit by tonight."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't rush genius. Would you put a drive-thru window in Spago's?"

"Edna, it's Riptide. He's back. Last night he had a giant octopus attack commuters on the Tri-Harbor Bridge. We're still counting the bodies. Tonight Violet and Dash are going after him. I need to go with them. I know I can't rush genius, but who else but a genius could produce a suit for me in time?"

"It will look hideous," she warned. "Well, it will look fantastic, of course, because I will design it. But it will look nowhere as good as it could."

"What's important is that it's done in time. Looks are unimportant."

"That is the silliest thing you've ever said. Looks are everything, dahling!"

"Edna, you owe me. If it weren't for me, there'd have been no superheroes at all. You'd have spent your entire career designing for no one but sweaty, skinny models."

"Ugh! Don't remind me. Okay, okay. Gemstone will get a new supersuit. I just wished you'd kept in shape. Designing for a body like that is like designing for a chimpanzee. Go, go! Come back at four. The suit will be ready."

Jack-Jack and I went home. I put him down for his nap and went on the Internet. Wikipedia had an article on Riptide. I focused first on the paragraphs about his trident.

There was a split of opinion about what it was for. Some opined that it was a conduit by which Riptide transmitted his psychic commands to his sea monsters. Others thought it was the source of those psychic commands and that Riptide had no innate psychic powers himself. If this were true, then Riptide wouldn't be a true super; he'd just be a run-of-the-mill mad scientist.

The article set out some speculation on how the trident worked. It had three prongs, three antennae if you will, which meant it probably broadcast simultaneously on three different wavelengths.

The Oceanographic Institute's website had an article on the physiology of the brain of the octopus. These creatures have three different kinds of cerebral neutral connectors, each subject to interference by a different wavelength on the electromagnet spectrum. Ho ho! So that is how Riptide was controlling his beasties.

And now that I knew the three frequencies, it was easy to reverse engineer a trident like the one that Riptide carried. I spent most of the day building one.

As four o'clock neared, I bundled Jack-Jack into the car, and we drove back to Edna's. The gate was open, which I thought was weird. We drove straight through to the front of what was left of her estate.

The main house was shattered and smoking.

I parked the car on the driveway as far from the smoldering wreckage as I could. I stuck my head out. "Edna!" I shouted. "Edna?" No answer.

I climbed out and approached carefully. I called her name a few more times, but was met only with silence.

The front door had been ripped off its hinges and thrown several yards away. Just inside, a defense robot lay on its back, gutted, its shredded electronics still sparking. "Edna!"

I made my way along the hall. A pop-out machinegun lay as a pile of twisted junk. A control panel on the wall had been ripped to pieces. I muscled open a sliding door and went into the demonstration complex.

My supersuit lay on the floor. It was twisted, dirty, and trampled on but was still all in one piece. I knew it was mine because of the big, stylized letter "G" on the chest.

I continued on through to the back of the house, looking for Edna. Except now, there was no back of the house. It had been torn away and lay as so much detritus, scattered in small pieces all the way down the hillside which led to the ocean.

I took my supersuit, hurried back to the car, and found Jack-Jack gurgling happily. We left. As we exited through the front gate, I was calling 9-1-1 on my cell phone.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"You have nothing to worry about with me on the job, Mr. Stone," the ponytailed blond chattered. "Mrs. Parr uses me whenever she needs a babysitter for Jack-Jack. I've been trained in first aid and CPR and early childhood development. I've brought along CDs of Mozart, like I always do-"

"That's fine, fine," I told her. "So like I said, Violet and Dash are both working on term papers down at the library." (In reality, Violet had just walked past us invisible, and Dash had shot past, faster than a rifle bullet. Both were now waiting for me in the car.) "You have my cell phone number in case of an emergency-"

"Oh, I'm trained for any emergency-"

"Fine, fine. Well, hopefully, I won't be too late. There's food in the fridge if you get hungry. Try the left-over pizza; it's great." I made my escape.

Violet and Dash were waiting in the car along with one of Bob's friends, Lucius Best. "Lucius?"

He pulled open his windbreaker to reveal his supersuit. "Frozone," he explained.

I pulled open my overcoat. "Gemstone."

"Yeah, I know," he said.

I handed Violet back the broach I'd loaned her the night before and gave Dash a belt buckle decorated with what appeared to be gems in the shape of the letter "D." "Hang onto these," I told them. "If worse comes to worse, I can home in on their fractals, like a beacon. Sorry Lucius, I didn't realize you'd be here."

He shrugged. "I can watch my own back," he said. "Let's go." So we left.

As we headed downtown, Dash asked, "What's our plan?"

"Before this afternoon, the plan was simple," I replied. "Riptide shows up to get the ransom, and we grab him. But he anticipated us. He's captured Edna Mode, and so we now have to rescue her before we can go after him."

"Edna?" moaned Lucius. "Oh no!"

"She's a pain," grumped Violet. "Let him have her."

I growled, "We're supers, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah. She's still a pain."

Dash asked again. "So what's the plan?"

"Well, I have a doozy of a plan," I replied. "We're going to let the authorities handle things."

"What?"

"We supers have always been borderline vigilantes," I explained to him, "and whenever there are vigilantes, there's a danger of excesses. So it's always best if the duly elected authority can handle things. We need to sit back and let them do their jobs. They are highly trained, and they're good at what they do. But we'll be there as a back-up in case they need us."

"I want to crack some heads," he grumbled.

We drove down to Police Central, which is where I figured the city was gathering the ransom. I left the others (and my overcoat) in the car, fractilized, and strolled up to the precinct as a humanoid-form collection of dazzling brilliant crystals.

"Gemstone!" gasped the first cop that saw me. "Wow, I thought you were dead!"

"Keep hoping," I retorted. "Where are they keeping the ransom?"

"Upstairs," he said, pointing. "Hey guys! It's Gemstone!"

I went up.

"Man, are we glad to see you!" the cops upstairs gushed.

It's good to be loved. I went into a heavily guarded room. On a low table in the center or the room was a 1x1x2 treasure chest with its lid opened. It was empty.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Where are the diamonds?"

The captain in charge shook her head. "Do you realize how many millions of dollars' worth of diamonds it would take to fill this box? That kind of expenditure would bankrupt this city for a hundred years."

"So what's the plan?" I asked her.

"Plan?" she echoed. "We have no plan. When you showed up, we hoped you did." The cops looked at me with hungry eyes.

I shrugged helplessly.

"I have a plan," said Violet, materializing on top of a nearby bookcase.

"Hey! How'd she get in here?"

"It's the girl that battled the giant robot. She's one of the Incredibles!"  
>Violet continued, "Riptide is going to be expecting a lot of gemstones, right? So Gemstone, you get in the chest and do that loosy-goosy thing you do where you seem to break into your individual fractals. Riptide will see them and think the ransom has been paid. Only it'll be you."<p>

"Yeah," said Dash, screeching to a halt. "He's gonna be nervous, so he's not going to stop and do a thorough inspection. He'll grab the chest and run. We can follow him back to his hide out."

"Where are all these kids coming from?"

The captain got down on her knee and grasped Dash by the shoulders. "Little boy, where are Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl?"

Dash went pale and looked up to his sister.

She mumbled, "On an ocean cruise?"

The captain cringed.

"Hey," I barked. "You have Invisible Girl, the Dash and Gemstone. How many more supers do you need?" I reached into my own torso, pulled out the duplicate trident I had hidden there, and dropped it into the treasure chest. Then I climbed up onto the table, stepped into the chest, and did that loosy-goosy thing I do. My fractal structure lost its human form, and I flowed down into and filled the chest.

"This is no good," said the captain. "There're rubies and emeralds and sapphires mixed in with the diamonds."

"Of course," drawled Invisible Girl, a.k.a. Violet. "There's not enough diamonds in a city of this size. So as an act of good faith, you filled the empty space with other kinds of gems."

Dash beamed. "I like it."

"And don't worry, Gemstone," said Violet. "We'll be right there to protect you."

"You will not! You two will stay here with the police where it's safe."

Dashed whipped around the chest, flipped the lid closed and turned the key, locking me in. "Quiet," he snapped. "Ransoms can't talk!"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Lucius Best nibbled contentedly on a blue snow cone. Yes, he'd promised to keep an eye on Violet and Dash until Gemstone got back, and yes, they'd disappeared almost immediately after Gemstone had walked into the precinct house, but really, how's a guy supposed to keep an eye on a girl who can turn invisible and on a boy who can move faster than the eye can see? The kids were safe, he knew. There were cops everywhere, and there were no sounds of screaming or explosions.

"It's a little early in the season to be selling snow cones, isn't it?" he asked the street vendor who sold it to him.

"A little," admitted the short, chubby man as he adjusted the a.m. radio that was playing tinny music. "But I want people to be used to seeing me out here, so when the weather does finally warm up, they'll want to buy from me and not from the competition."

"You make any money at this?"

He shook his head. "Not now no. I do okay at lunchtime, and things will pick up in a few minutes when people leave for home, but day-to-day, I'm losing money. Once summertime gets here is when I clean up."

"People of Metroville!" crackled the voice on the cheap radio. "This is Riptide! The hour of payment is at hand! Listen carefully! You are to take the treasure chest filled with blue-white diamonds and deliver it to the snow-cone vendor located across the plaza from Police Central. If he verifies that proper payment has been made, then there shall be no further attacks. Woe be it to you if you have diverted from my instructions in the slightest! Riptide out."

Lucius looked at the chubby little man beside him.

The man shrugged. "Okay, I do a little temping on the side for supervillains. It helps pay the rent."

Lucius ran back for the car.

"If you liked your snow cone," the man shouted after him, "be sure to tell your friends!" He looked around to see a handful of police pushing a hand trolley with a wobbling wheel across the plaza. On the hand trolley, was a treasure chest.

When they arrived, the police captain straightened her shoulders and said, "Riptide has directed us to deliver this chest to you."

The vendor nodded. "I've been expecting you. Call me Eddy."

"Eddy what?"

"Y'know, just Eddy. It's my supervillian name."

"You're a super?"

"Naw, I'm just a snow cone vendor. But Riptide thought I should have a cool name."

The captain flipped open the treasure chest.

Eddy saw the assortment of glistening gems and muttered, "Oh boy." He took out his cell phone, flipped it open, pushed a speed-dial number, and put the phone to his ear. "It's me."

Angry words came from the other end.

"Yeah, I know," replied Eddy. "Pull my left earlobe if it's a double cross; pull my right earlobe if everything's okay. But Riptide, it's about 95% here. The chest is full of diamonds, but there also some ruby and emeralds mixed in. And a few sapphires too."

More angry words.

"Riptide wants to know what the heck is going on?"

The captain didn't bat an eyelash. "We couldn't find enough diamonds in time, so we threw in some other precious stones as a sign of our good faith."

"You hear that?"

A couple of hostile words assailed Eddy's ear. Then he blinked and snapped his cell phone shut. "He'll call us back."

Frozone was speed skating across the plaza. He slid to a neat halt beside the group. "What's going on?"

The police captain pointed to the open treasure chest. We couldn't find enough diamonds, so we put in some other stones. Riptide is deciding whether he wants to take the gems or not."

Frozone glanced into the chest and immediately recognized Gemstone in his amorphic state. The tall, slender superhero suppressed a smile.

Eddy's phone chimed: _Let it Snow; Let it Snow; Let it Snow._ "Hello?"

Riptide's voice was calmer now.

"Okay. Bye bye." He snapped the phone closed. "Riptide says I should take the treasure chest." He opened up the front of his mobile snow cone booth. Inside was a space 1' x 1' x 2'. "Put it in here."

A couple of the more brawny cops picked the chest up and hoisted it into the opening.

Eddy closed the flap up again. "Don't try to follow me." He shoved the happily tinkling mobile booth across the plaza over to the river side. The cops watched him go. When he got to the riverbank, he flung a tarp off of a bulky object there. Underneath was a one-person minisub. He opened the rear hatch and wrestled the snow cone stand inside, and then closed the hatch and shoved the sub into the river. When it began to float, he popped the top bubble, clambered inside, closed the bubble, started the engine and began to submerge the minisub.

At the last moment, Dash came streaking across the plaza. He leapt onto the back of the minisub. A force field appeared out of nowhere, forming a dome over him.

It all happened so quickly that Eddy, who was concentrating on steering the sub, failed to notice.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Yeah, it was a tight squeeze being there in that treasure chest. But it was only minutes (although it seemed like hours) before strong hands pulled the chest out of the back of the sub and dropped it onto the hard ground.

"Open it," said Riptide's muffled voice.

There were a few clicks, and then the chest opened. I looked up into some kind of reasonably well lit, subterranean cavern.

A woman's voice said, "It's not as bad as I feared." She plucked out one of my gemstones and examined it using a jeweler's loupe. "What is this?" she snarled. "This is no diamond!"

I pulled my fractals together and rose up, specter like, out of the treasure chest. As soon as I had a mouth, I said, "It's a carbon-based crystalline fractal, quite hard and indestructible, but it has little monetary value." I took the clear fractal from her and let it slip back into my torso.

The bolts of assault rifles clicked all around us. I glanced around to see that Riptide had a half dozen well-armed henchmen surrounding us. Their Russian AK-47's were aiming at me. (AK-47's? What's wrong with buying American?)

Half the subterranean cavern consisted of a lake with our minisub pulled up on the shore and a larger sub moored nearby. There were a few pieces of heavy equipment on the land part as well as some crude tables and hammered-together chairs. A few passages led away from the main cavern. I'd seen this type of set up before. Wolfgirl, Finalstroke, Glassman, Dame Death, and (what was his name?) Electo all used hideouts like this.

Riptide was a slender, medium-sized man with pockmarks on his hollow cheeks and uncombed brown hair. Beside him, was a woman wearing a black turtleneck, black slacks and black boots. Her hair was long, straight and black. This and her burgundy lipstick and eye shadow gave her a somewhat Goth look.

"Good evening, Riptide," I said. "Who's your friend?"

"Who are you?" she snapped back.

"Gemstone."

"No wonder you look so old. I read about you when I was a little girl. My name is Noora Nightfire, CEO of Nightfire Industries."

Riptide interrupted her with a: "This isn't a social call," and then he turned to me. "You know the penalty for a double cross."

I shook my head. "You can't beat me, Riptide. All your men have are AK-47's, and they're useless against my fractals."

"But even you can't beat six men in hand-to-hand combat. You should have never come alone. Grab him, boys!"

His henchmen threw down their assault rifles and tried to tackle me, but a force field appeared and held them at bay. Inside the field, Violet materialized. "What makes you think he came alone?"

"Forget this," snapped Riptide. "Get your guns!"

The men turned back around. "Where are they?"

A distant chipmunk giggle echoed from across the cave. Dash was standing there holding one AK-47 with the others piled at his feet. "Lose something?" He squeezed the trigger.

I'm sure his intention was to spray the area to make Riptide's men dive for cover. But an AK-47 kicks like a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. After the first shot, he toppled over backwards, and the bullets chewed harmlessly into the ceiling before the gun jumped out of his hands and went clattering across the cave floor.

Riptide's henchmen didn't seem to notice this and went diving for the floor.

"Quick!" I said to Violet. "We need to get over to Dash!"

"Run!"

Run? Well, her force field was spherical. So I ran. It was like running in an unbreakable bubbled. We got to Dash just as he was reaching for his errant AK-47.

"Thanks," I said, as Violet's force field disappeared and I snatch the assault rifle out of Dash's hands. "I'll take that."

"Grandpa!"

I pulled back the bolt and spun around to aim it at Riptide and his crew. But the last of them were piling into the larger submarine.

"Mmmfphf mmgh mrphfph," a voice echoed from a nearby cave. It sounded like Edna.

"Dash, check that cave out. See who's in there."

He zipped through a crevice and zipped back out into the main cavern. "It's Edna Mode," he reported. "She tied to a chair and gagged."

"Is she alone?"

"Sure."

"Go untie her."

"Ahhh, do I have to?"

The submarine was pulling away into the lake and submerging and so I knew there was no little danger to us. I picked one of the other AK-47's up and handed it to Dash. "Either free her or shoot her in the head with this."

"Ha ha ha. Very funny." He zipped back into the cave.

A moment later we heard a short scream. "Be careful with that knife, you little monster! Look there, you've cut me!"

"It's nothing," he retorted.

"Edna!" I cried. "We're out here!"

She waddled out, holding one wrist. When she saw me, she said, "Not bad. Come now, spin spin spin so I can see." She made a little twirling motion with her finger.

So I did a slow turn so she could judge her latest work.

"Just as I feared. You do look like a chimpanzee in a supersuit."

Violet guffawed. When I gave her a look, she blushed. "Sorry Grandpa," she mumbled. "But you kinda do."

There was a loud swirling sound, and a gigantic tentacle emerged from out of the water.

Violet saw it and said, "Uh oh."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I handed my AK-47 to Edna, picked up two more, and gave them to Violet and Dash. "Cover me," I told them. "I have a trident back in the treasure chest with which I can control that monster. I'm going to make a run for it."

Dash let go of his AK-47, zipped across the cave, snatched my trident out of the chest, dodged some slow moving tentacles, and was back in time to catch his assault rifle before it hit the ground. He handed me the trident. "Leave the running to me, okay Grandpa?"

"Uh thanks, Dash."

"Amazing," muttered Edna. "He's even faster than Tachyon, Pink Arrow, and Overdrive. Never have I seen such speed."

The giant octopus was making its way through the shallow water towards us. A threatening rumble was coming from the parrot-like beak in the base of its head. I aimed the trident and pulled the energy-level slider back towards me as far as it would go.

The octopus stopped moving. Then it sank down into the shallows and went to sleep.

"Good work!" said Edna. "Now it's time to get out of here."

"Not yet," I told her. "Riptide and his crew have gotten away. We need to look around to see if we can figure out what they're up to."

"Stay here!" chirped Dash, and he was off, racing into the various tunnels and caves which led off the main cavern. A moment later, he walked out of the last and widest of the tunnels. Dash _walked!_ He seemed to be in shock.

We hurried over to him. "Dash, what's the matter."

"Up that tunnel," he began his report dully, pointing at a narrow tunnel at the other end of the cavern, "is a passageway leading up. At its very top, there's a bunch of explosives, rigged to explode. In that cave, there's a bunch more of these assault rifles, and some hand grenades and mortars. Then in the other caves, there're sleeping quarters, food stores, and even a kitchen. But in here," he said pointing behind him, "take a look."

Violet, Edna and I went in to take a look. It was a large hanger lined with what looked at first to be one-man flying saucers.

"I've seen these things before," drawled Violet in stunned recognition, "back on that volcano island with mom and dad. Syndrome's men chased us all over the island with those things."

I examined one. It flew by using a reciprocating pair of hover blades which spun in opposite directions around the central cockpit. I located a Nightfire Industries logo near the open cockpit.

Edna nodded. "Of course. It all makes sense. Syndrome was an ingenious weapons inventor, but he had no capacity to mass produce his weapons. For that, he would need an arms manufacturer like Nightfire Industries."

The world shook. Rocks fells from the ceiling and walls. A hellacious roar thundered in from the main cavern. We ran back.

The far wall had exploded. Huge rocks were still toppling into the lake, exposing large amounts of blue sky beyond.

Dash was poised by a control panel, his finger hovering over a large, red button. When he saw us coming, he slapped his hands behind his back and croaked, "I, I, I didn't do anything!"

Violet shook her head. "You are such a retard."

"_You're_ the retard!"

"Grandpa, Dash blew out the side of the cave!"

"Did not!"

Edna grumbled, "I hate children. Gobble, gobble, gobble."

"I want you three to look around, see if you can't find some papers or drawings or something that shows what Riptide is planning next. Go!" Much to my surprise, they obeyed.

Meanwhile, I spotted a nearly empty soda bottle, the kind with the screw-on lid. I took it down and emptied it into the lake and rinsed it out the best I could. Then I took a stick I found on the rocky "beach" and carefully approached the snoozing octopus. I scraped as much of its slime as I dared into the bottle and screwed the lid back on.

The octopus stirred.

I backed away fast.

"Look out, Grandpa!"

Dash appeared out of nowhere with what looked like a harpoon and stabbed one of the tentacles. The monster growled and, shaking off his sleep, reach for Dash. But the kid was too quick for it. He leaped up, repelled off another tentacle and zipped to safety.

Edna asked, "Dahling, I think we might have overstayed our welcome."

"Come on, back to the saucers!" I led a general retreat back into the hanger cave. "Okay, who here knows how to drive a car?"

No hands were raised.

"Edna, not even you?"

"Dahling, there are two kinds of people in the world. People who enjoy being driven and chauffeurs. I assure you, I am not a chauffeur."

So I gave a short seminar on how to drive a car, uh, a car that flew. Then we each climbed into our own saucer and started our engines. "Okay," I radioed them, "keep your saucers nice and level. Gently rise straight up. Take it easy. We're in no hurry."

Violet and Dash gently rose.

Edna went up much faster, bounced off the ceiling and slid off to one side. The tips of her blades sparked as she touched the cave wall, and she slid back the other way. "I've got it, dahling. I've got it." She settled uneasily next to Violet and Dash.

Okay, so I'd have to keep an eye on her. "Single file as we exit," I radioed. "Violet, you go first. Dash, follow your sister. Edna, follow Dash. I'll bring up the rear."

My heart beat faster when I realized what I was doing. I was taking a bunch of non-driving amateurs through some narrow subterranean confines in flying cars even though they had absolutely no experience driving anything.

But Violet led us out like a pro. Dash didn't try anything stupid but instead just obediently followed along behind his sister. Even Edna didn't screw up. I was amazed.

"Uh Grandpa?" Violet's voice crackled once she was outside.

"Yeah?"

"I know where we are."

When I caught up, I twisted around to see what she was looking at. There was no mistaking the silhouette of the stone fortress.

Fort Castlerock Penitentiary was the inescapable prison just off the coast from Metroville. The bone-chilling, swirling Labrador Current made swimming away virtually impossible.

Riptide had built his hideout right underneath the prison. And there was a passageway leading up to where high explosives were packed. He'd been planning upon as mass escape and upon building a heavily armed army of thugs and murderers. Charming.

I twist the radio's frequency until I found the police band. It took me only moments to get in touch with Frozone and tell him what I found.

Riptide hadn't been planning on taking the ransom money and leaving, as he'd promised. He'd been planning on using it to finance a crime wave, the likes of which had never been seen before.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

After Witchy Woman had passed on and I'd sold our house, most of my lab equipment had ended up being stored in "Grandpa's room" at Helen's and Bob's. There just wasn't enough room for it in my small condo. I never used Grandpa's room much, just to sleep over on special occasions like Thanksgiving, but this evening, I needed my lab equipment. So that's where we went.

For once, Violet beat Dash to the front door. She unlocked it, went inside, and screamed!

We all raced inside.

From the couch, an incredibly handsome young teenager was lifting himself up off of our blond babysitter. Her lipstick was smeared all over his face and neck.

"Tony Rydinger! Kari McKeen!" shrieked Violet. "What are you doing!"

They were both stammering.

"Where's Jack-Jack?" I demanded.

"Who?"

"Jack-Jack. The baby who you're supposed to be watching."

"Oh, he's asleep in his crib."

I went running in to check while Violet ripped out a tirade of four-letter words. Jack-Jack was indeed sleeping peacefully. He started to stir when he heard his sister's shouts. I put a gentling hand on his belly. "Shhhhhhhh, go back to sleep." He dozed off again, and I went back into the living room.

"Hey, you were the one who dumped me, remember?" Tony was replying. "So I guess I can kiss whoever I want."

"Not in _my_ house!" Violet was more angry than I'd ever seen her. "And it's 'whomever,' you moron!"

I stepped between them. "Shhhhhhhh," I shushed them in much the same way as I'd just quieted Jack-Jack. "Son, come over her with me a moment." I put my arm around Tony's shoulder and led him over next to the front door. "Listen, I'm Violet's grandfather, and I've known her all her life. There's only one way to handle her in a situation like this."

"What's that?"

"Run!" I opened the door, shoved him out and slammed it again. He must have taken my advice because he didn't try to come back. I next approached Kari. "How much to I owe you."

"Listen, Mr. Stone, I, I, I . . ."

"It's okay. Just tell me how much I owe you."

She told me, I paid her, and she left.

Then I looked around for Violet. She was no longer in the living room. I heard her upstairs in her bedroom, sobbing her eyes out. I sighed. This was one of those times when a girl really needed the shoulder of an older, wiser man to weep on. I stated up the stairs.

"Don't worry, Grandpa," said Dash passing me up. "I got it covered.

"Dash!"

As usual, he ignored me. He went into his sister's room and closed the door. I knew he'd make a total hash of things, and so I put my ear to the door and waited for the right moment to intervene.

"Get out of here, you little twerp!"

"Sure, sure, I'm leaving, but before I go, I just want to say that I'm really proud of you."

"Wha . . ?"

"Look at what you accomplished today. You were the one to come up with the plan that got us into Riptide's hideout. And if it hadn't have been for you making that force-field bubble on the back of the sub, neither one of us would have made it in there along with Grandpa, and you _know_ that old man couldn't have handled those bad guys by himself. You really saved the day."

Dash paused to left this sink in and then continued, "I know we fight a lot and stuff, but I just want to know that I'm really proud of you, I love you a lot, and I'm glad you're my sister. Hey! Let me go!"

The door flew open and Dash emerged with a smear of lipstick on his cheek. He raced into the bathroom and began to vigorously wash his face. Usually we have to import a battalion of Gurkha commandos to force him to wash his face. We'd never dreamed that just a dab of lipstick could get him to wash it voluntarily.

Violet's sobbing had stopped. I guess Dash's I-love-you bomb had worked. I went downstairs to check on Edna.

She'd just heated up the left-over pizza and had taken her first bite. "Dahling," she said, "you must contact the Pentagon about this pizza. It would make an excellent weapon of mass destruction." She made a face and pushed her plate away.

"What are you talking about?" I tried a bite. It was (as I expected) delicious!

"I will make dinner for the family," she announced.

"You know how to cook?"

"Dahling, I am a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu!"

Who'd have thunk it? Through the door, I could hear Jack-Jack start of fuss. I knew that in a moment we'd be hearing an ear-splitting, hungry cry. "So, how are you with baby food?"

"Ah! It is delicious on pancakes. You should try it!"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I guess gourmet cooking takes a long time because, by the time Edna summoned us down to dinner, I had taken out and set up all my old genetics equipment, had done a thorough examination of the genetic structure secreted in the octopuses slime, compared it to examples which are abundant on the internet, and had concluded that what we had faced back in the cavern was not a true giant octopus but rather was a normal-sized octopus which had been made artificially gigantic by viral manipulation of its DNA. This was extremely bad news because it meant that Riptide did not have to scour the seas in search of another very rare giant octopus but rather could turn any ordinary octopus into a towering, homicidal monster. I announced my findings as we sat down to a dinner of something which I am incapable of pronouncing (although it tasted darn good!).

Violet cast a suspicious eye upon me. "Since when have you been such an expert on genetics?"

Edna blurted, "Please! You must be joking!"

"Joking about what?"

"Edna," I cautioned, "now is not the time."

"If they do not know, dahling, now is the perfect time."

"Quiet."

"Grandpa, what is she talking about?"

Edna was flabbergasted. "Don't you know where superheroes come from?"

"Edna!"

She stood up (which was not much help since she was shorter standing up than when she was sitting in a chair), reached up over the table, and pointed an accusatory finger at me. "He invented them!"

"Grandpa invented superheroes?" echoed Dash. "Half the time he can't even find his own glasses."

Edna folded her arms. "Tell them. Tell them or I will."

I heaved a sigh. The tiny tyrant had won. "Decades ago, I was doing research on one particular gene, and I found out that by manipulating it with the use of a virus, I could turn lab animals into super creatures. The next step was human testing. But human tests are usually done on volunteers from prisons. Well, it didn't seem to be a wise idea to turn convicts into supers, so I tested on myself instead.

"Okay, it worked. I became a super. But unlike with the animal subjects, with a human subject, the virus turned out to be contagious. My wife caught the virus from me, and she became the second super. Then some of our friends caught it. Not everybody does. In fact, most people are immune."

I continued, "But because the virus alters the person's genetic structure, there's a good chance their children will also be supers. Helen inherited being super from Witchy Woman and me. You guys inherited it from Helen and your dad."

Violet was studying me. "You seem almost ashamed."

"I am ashamed," I admitted. "I changed the world. I let loose a laboratory mutation, and it spread all over the globe.

My mistake altered people's lives, and they had no choice in the matter. Yes, I've made superheroes, but I'm also responsible for all the supervillains. That's a heavy burden to bear."

Dash chirped, "I _like_ being a super."

Violet was looking at the piece of paper in her hand. "Your story makes my bit of news seem like nothing."

Poor kid. She'd had a rotten day. The last thing she needed was to be shown up by her grandfather. "I'm sure that's not true. What's your news?"

She couldn't raise her eyes to mine as she handed me a computer printout. It contained Riptide's picture, his real name, current address and bio.

My jaw dropped. "How did you find this?"

"Simple," she shrugged. "Riptide always uses the freak animals from the ocean. It's happened so many times, he couldn't be finding them all; he must be making them. This means he must have advanced training in genetics. I figured he must have a PhD in genetics or at least in biology. I estimated his age, and then went back and gathered the names of doctoral candidates in the years when he'd most likely have gotten his degree. There's not that many of them. After that, it was a simple matter of checking names on the internet. A few have died, but all the rest have high-paying jobs. All except him."

"You're a genius!" I exclaimed.

She shrugged as if what she'd done was no big deal.

Then our back door was kicked open, and heavily armed men poured in.

Chapter 10


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Instinctively, I began converting to fractals. The thugs ignored me. The first one in grabbed Dash before he could react. The second lunged for Violet. A weak force field had just started to grow around her, but the man's hand had enough momentum to stab through the ethereal sphere and to grab her. He gave her a firm shake, and the force field popped like a soap bubble. A third man seized Edna. The remaining men pointed their guns at the three captives.

Riptide entered followed by Noora Nightfire. He smiled. "Don't resist, Gemstone, or an awful lot of blood with flow."

"Grandpa!" snarled Dash as he tried to twist around and bite his captor's wrist, "Get them!" His captor slapped him silly.

"You're finished, Riptide," I told him. "Your organization has been smashed, your weapons are captured, your hideout's seized, and your plan's revealed. I can even make your beasties dance to my tune. This stunt will gain you nothing."

He grinned evilly. "You don't know me very well, do you Gemstone?"

A slender figure dressed in lime green bounded in through the open door. His feet landed on the thug holding Violet, and then he bounced high into the air, ricocheted off the ceiling, landed on the guy holding Dash, and flipped over to land on the thug holding Edna.

Guns swung towards him, but Dash was already ripping around the room, slapping the guns aside.

Violet popped open a force field that knocked two nearby henchmen sprawling.

Edna dove for a loose AK-47 and came up shooting.

"Edna!" I screamed. "No!"

But with a crocodile smile, she "walked" a stream of bullets across the breadth of the kitchen, taking out the refrigerator, the toaster, the coffeemaker, the microwave and the cookie jar (no, not the cookie jar!).

Riptide's men were flat on the bellies, trying to merge with the linoleum. I pinned each of them in turn, as Dash provided me with plastic zip ties, so that I could bind their wrists.

Violet used a force field to pin three of the dazed henchmen into a corner.

Edna covered the rest with her assault rifle, although I think it was only me who noticed the gun was empty.

The slender green figure stood nearby, looking somewhat embarrassed and unsure of himself. He appeared to be in his early teens. A yellow oval was featured on his chest, which centered around a green grasshopper. A matching cowl covered the top half of his face. He had no cape (Edna would so approve).

After we'd secured the various henchmen, Riptide and Noora Nightfire, I gave the lad a friendly nod, "Thanks, Grasshopper." (His moniker was not that hard to guess.)

He shrugged. "I'm happy I could help, Gemstone."

Edna was on the phone, reprimanding the police for not already being at my house. "If I have to do your job for you, dahling, the least you could do would be to show up and assist me."

Violet came creeping up to the youth, looking at him with suspicion and disbelief. "Tony?" she asked so quietly that only he and I could hear her. "Tony Rydinger?"


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

After the police had hauled the intruders away, Violet and the Grasshopper went out into the backyard to talk privately.

I went upstairs to Grandpa's room and opened the window to help clear the room of the fumes resulting from my earlier experiments (and certainly not to eavesdrop).

Tony's voice said, "I wasn't stalking you."

"I didn't say you were," replied Violet's voice. "I know that you 'just happened' to be passing by my house while dressed in a superhero costume. So, how long have you been a super?"

"Remember that night when you kissed me and I said I felt like I could leap to the moon? Well, my leaping abilities started a few nights after that. How long have you been a super?"

"All my life."

"All your life? Whoa!"

"I'm not allowed to tell anybody. We're not allowed to tell anybody. You can't tell anybody, promise?"

"Sure. Sure."

"So Grasshopper, why did you just happen to be passing by my house?"

"Well, I wanted to show you something. I, I came by earlier in the evening but you weren't home yet."

"You mean, the time when you were kissing Kari?"

"I, uh, I got sidetracked."

"Sidetracked?"

"Uh, lured."

"You were lured?"

"I panicked, okay, I panicked! I came over here to show you something, and suddenly I felt that it wouldn't make any difference, and you'd never take me back, and there Kari was, so willing and so incredibly stupid."

"You kissed her because she's stupid?"

"Yeah." There was a pause. "Here. Look at this."

"What is it?"

"Just read it!"

Another long pause. "Is this for real?"

"Yeah."

"You made the _Dean's List_?"

"Yeah."

"Let me put that another way: _You_ made the Dean's List?"

"Yeah. Everybody thinks I'm stupid. But I'm not stupid; I'm just lazy. I hate studying, and I hate homework. That's why my grades have been in the toilet. Then you dumped me because I was stupid . . ."

"I never said you were stupid!"

". . . you dumped me because I was stupid, and I couldn't bear that. So, I started studying. I just wanted you to see what I can do when I'm properly motivated."

"Let me get this straight. You did this for me?"

"Yeah."

"Let me get this straight again. You, Tony Rydinger, made the Dean's List in order to impress me, Violet Parr?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. No, there's no guessing about it. That's exactly why I did it!"

"I have to sit down. I have to . . . Tony, I don't, I don't know what to say."

"Say yes."

Silence. "Yes to what?"

"I want to kiss you, and so I want you to say yes."

"Oh that. Well sure, I guess. Aluppp-!"

Okay, that's the kind of pause in a conversation that a grandfather just doesn't need to be listening in to. I went back downstairs. Both Violet and I entered the kitchen from opposite ends at about the same time. She was grinning triumphantly.

"That's not a good enough reason," I told her.

"What?"

"You can't base a lasting relationship of the simple fact that a boy was willing to try to impress you."

Violet shook her head. "You don't get it, Grandpa, do you?"

Apparently not. "Don't get what?"

"Tony is really cute, and he's a really great kisser!"

Oh, ahem, that. I was just coming up with a very wise yet viciously cutting response to her when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi Dad, it's me. I'm just calling to make sure everything's okay there."

"Oh, hi Helen. Yeah, the kids are fine. Things couldn't be better."

"We just got the news that Riptide's back, and we're a little worried."

"Nothing to worry about there. The police just took him and his men into custody a little while ago."

"That's great news. You weren't involved in that, were you?"

"Hey, my supersuit is long gone, remember?"

"Were you?"

"Uh, Kitten, remember last Christmas when you said you were thinking about redoing the kitchen?"

"We don't have money for that now, not after paying for the cruise, and don't try to change the subject."

"Well, maybe your old man can throw in a few bucks and help you out there."

"Dad? Did you destroy my kitchen?"

"Me? No!"

"Oh no, oh no, oh no. Okay, okay. Who did?"

Long pause. "Edna."

"Edna? Edna Mode? Why would she destroy my kitchen?"  
>"She didn't mean to, Kitten. It's just that the AK-47 she was firing got away from her."<p>

"Edna Mode was shooting an AK-47 in my kitchen?"

"Yes, but it was kind of an accident. Everyone's-fine-love-you-see-you Saturday!" I hung up and quickly unplugged the phone.

I turned to find Dash salvaging bullet-riddled chocolate-chip cookies from out of the shards of the cookie jar. He squirmed back down to the floor and turned to me. "Grandpa, I'm worried."

"There's nothing to be worried about," I assured him. "The cops have all the bad guys in jail. They can't hurt you."

He wasn't satisfied. "If Tony Rydinger became a superhero because he kissed my sister, and if Tony then kissed Kari, does that mean that Kari's going to become a super too?"

I gave him an indulgent grandfatherly chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. "We have nothing to worry about there," I told him. "When your mother sees this kitchen on Saturday, she's going to ground you and Violet for the rest of your lives, and she'll kill me outright. So who cares if Kari becomes a super or not?"

Dash looked to the gods. "Why am I not comforted?" Then to me, he said, "Cookie?"

I took the cookie fragment and brushed a shard of porcelain off of it. "Thanks."

It was then that the natural gas escaping from a pinhole leak reached the stove's pilot light. The oven exploded, sending its door flying across the kitchen and smashing the cuckoo clock on the far wall. The oven was a roaring inferno, which immediately spread to the shattered cabinets and shredded curtains.

"Dash, does your family have a fire extinguisher?"

"No. I've never seen one."

"Oh."

The End

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